Bust

Well, I was online in Eve for two one-hour sessions last night and got to do pretty much nothing. I was waiting and waiting for other corp mates to do some hunting and while people were on, they were either off in 9GYL ratting for cash, setting up in the op system, or doing who knows what else. Since I probably won't get on a whole lot for the rest of the week, needless to say I was a bit pissed last night.

I'm better this morning. The fact of the matter is, my schedule means I'm online in the early evening, and other people tend to be online and active in the later evening. I'm just going to have to find an agent near the target operation system and run missions to keep busy, or try my hand at some minor trading to make some cash until I can go out with some other privateers.

Sigh.

Second Off: Eve

I'm all ready for PvP. Ships outfitted, base camp ready. Just gotta get with my mates and start hunting.

My Industrial alt Derranna is safely stationed in 9GYL, ready to manufacture whatever the corp wants or needs. Just need access to manufacturing hanger.

Chomping at the bit...

First Off: Eldar

I've read and reviewed the Eldar codex in detail now. In honour and excitement of this new awesome book, I've been assembling models from the box set and starting up my painting again. First off, Wave Serpent getting gang colours:

Its dark red on one side and lighter red on the other because I base in red gore and do the top of the plates in Blood Red and I haven't gotten all the way around yet.

And some assembling:
 
The wraithlord will alse get a heavy weapon mount when my magnets come in. This autarch will be my main one with power weapon and pistol for simple leading and standing in as my "Hero" using the Yriel rules in the odd mega-game. Now I need fluff for it. I'm going to have at least one more Autrach, one with warp jump generator and other stuff.

Kodachi Enterprises is On the Back Burner...

... for now.

I decided that with the new direction of IPORC that I'm not going to have the time nor resources to effectively get my own corp launched. So I decided to roll my alt into IPORC and increase its manufacturing / research capabilities. Its a considerable increase too, if I may be so bold, because I am nothing if not anal about supplies.

In the future Kodachi Enterprises may return but for now my full attention is given to IPORC.

So Much to Say, So Little Time!

First Item:

IPORC not only seems saved, it seems revitalized. The core members all seem to be thrilled about the return to "privateering" but are still leaving the door open for the carebears to continue mission running in safe space. Bah, I say. Better to learn by fire than grow soft. All of my stuff has been delivered to the new basecamp. All that's left is me in a shuttle to make my way this weekend, and Sunday evening begin my new career as an outlaw!

Second Item:

Sales of heavy missile launchers in Pelille are not happening. I'm wondering if I need to move to a more central location to sell my wares. No rush right now, but if I do move it will need to be a central system with research, manufacturing, and hopefully lots of mineral sales.

Third Item: Al has stated his intentions to start playing Eve! Woot! My reccommendations to him: spend a week getting a hang of the controls in Empire space but don't necessarily stay near the starting system. They tend to be very busy with players and hence experience lag. Don't be afraid to find an agent out in 0.7-0.8 system and run missions there while your skills develop. And make me a buddy!

Fourth Item:

The new Eldar codex was released yesterday in the box army set which I purchased. I have to say that the new models look great up close and the new codex is fantastic. The background has been restored to its former glory that a whole generation of Eldar players missed. It will take a while to digest the contents of the rules, but I have been vastly impressed so far. The new Autarch will be fun without being overpowering, the new powers for aspect warriors seem reasonable, the points changes have been expected.

A few things of note:
- For the points cost of 6 jetbikes and one cannon in the previous codex, I can now field 10 jetbikes with one cannon.
- Fire Prism rocks! Its not unreasonable to say it will become ubiquitous in Eldar armies, replacing the starcannon and wraithlord.
- Wraithlord suffers from wraithsight! ACK! :)
- Warp Spiders are now fast attack, guardian jetbikes are now troops.
- Dire Avengers are going to rock and be very popular due to awesome rules and amazing models.

Fifth Item:

Played a quick 1000 pt game with An00bis yesterday using new codex. I lost but it was my own fault and Jason's excellent determination. Fire Prism is lots of fun.

IPORC Lives!

The veteran corp members and directors got together last night and worked out a new plan to bring excitement back into the corp. More PvP action, less mundane tasks of carebearing and politicking. I'm happy with this and look forward to some serious PvP action.

 

"Welcome to the Dark Side"

There is one CCP sanctioned way to exchange ISK for cash: buy an Eve Game Time Code (GTC) and then sell it in game to someone for ISK. Well, yesterday I bought a GTC and will try and sell it for 120 million next time I am online for an hour. Maybe today at lunch.

I've been resisting this approach for a while as it felt like cheating. Paying cash directly for ISK is considered cheating by CCP and can get you banned, but many have done it. However, in a forum discussion about GTC selling one person said "look, I'm here to have fun and its more fun with money than scrambling to get money all the time". I can appreciate that sentiment, especially coming from a Warhammer hobby background. I don't want to spend the next two or three months ratting all the time to build up the cash needed to get my corporation up and running. I'd much prefer to participate in the other things like mission running and some PvP with corp mates. So soon I will be part of the well-off crowd, at least for a little while.

In other news, my industrial alt successfully retrieved all the minerals for the Caracal cruiser build this morning and it should be finished around noon. Then I can start concentrating on those Kestrels. Hence, need more money!!

UPDATE: Made the sale for a discount price of 100 million to speed things up. I'm justifying it as an inheritance from my now deceased father of my main character. I'm putting 70 million into the birth of Kodachi Enterprises, and 30 million just for outfitting my newly created cruiser and some training books I'm going to need in the future. Look out Eve, here I come!

Kodachi Enterprises is Underway!

This morning I packed up my Badger industrial ship with minerals in 9GYL and ran the gauntlet back to Pelille. No gate camps and only one player in a frigate tried to catch me, but I was too fast. I gave the minerals to my industrial alt along with several BPOs and a BPC for a Caracal. Unfortunately, she was short on some minerals needed to make the cruiser so I'll have to make some purchases and running around to get them, nothing too strenous. Its all within 3 jumps.

Since I had extra minerals, I began production of Heavy Missile Launchers in a run of 9 to sell for the first products of my yet to be created corporation!

In other news, my main's corporation appears to be falling apart at the seams with some of the experienced players (making up the majority of the board of directors) thinking about jumping corps, which would in my opinion, gut the place to a shell of what it was. Not sure what's going to happen, but it does not bode well. Plus the corp they are jumping to only accepts recruits with 6 million SP and I'm only over 1 million. I get the feeling more and more I'm on my own here, maybe time to start looking for a new corp?

Weekend Was Mostly a Bust

Due to a impromptu visit to the inlaws I only got to play Saturday morning and sunday evening. So while I made some money, it wasn't much compared to earlier in the week. I did get my second rank memory skill finished, so I'm working on Analytic Mind level 5 which should finish later this week. Woot.

In other news, I'm on to stage three of my manufacturing empire plan. Stage one was learning the manufacturing ropes using my main character and heavy missile launcher BPO. Stage two was learning the manufacturing skills on my alt. Stage 3 is the experimental phase of profitable manufacturing.

Using money I earned in ratting on my main character that I funelled to my alt, I had enough seed money to try my hand at a limited run of building Caldari Kestrels, one of the more popular Caldari frigates. I purchased a 10 run BPC for the frigate, and enough minerals to build one to start me off. Now I have to gather those purchases and to do that I should go around and make bookmark instas for the gates and relavant stations. I could probably get away without them, but I figure I might as well make them now for future mineral runs anyways. Minerals are going to be the bottleneck on my manufacturing and the most expensive component, I need to find some ways to secure minerals in greater volumes and more cheaply (or at least as cheaply) as possible.

I'm using this Kestrel run to do three things:
1) Prove I can make a profit
2) Determine exact costs of factory rental, mineral wastage, selling fees
3) Determine where savings can be made based on skills I can train.

Ideally I want to make about 30-50K profit on each frigate. We'll see.

Money!

Thirty minutes of ratting last night and another 60 minutes this morning and I made almost 3 million ISK. Good start, but I need more! I figure I'll rat every opportunity this weekend and head back to Pelille with my Badger full of minerals next Monday or Tuesday morning. Take my time and scout properly.

Meanwhile back in Pelille... my industrial character has taken to mining while skills are training and funds are low and I found myself rather enjoying it a bit. Not sure if I'm cut out for large scale mining, but I can see the attraction of looking for the good ore and mining it before some pirate or rat comes along.

I've been seriously considering my manufacturing business plan. There are two types of manufacturing characters out there: ones that do it as needed for personal or corp use, and others that do it for sale to make a profit. My goal is the latter one.

So how does one make a profit? There are two factors to consider: profit margin and volume. If the profit margin is low and selling volume is low, profit is going to be low and slow in coming. The goal is to maximize both as much as feasible. The profit margin can be maximized by skill training product efficiency like I'm doing and buying/mining minerals at low prices, while the selling volume will require some research to find out what sells and how much it costs to make. No point in blowing all my minerals on some big cruiser that no one wants to buy at a profitable price.

Plus there is the need for initial investment of ISK to get going. Blueprint Originals are pricey (e.g. 40 million for the Caracal Cruiser BPO) and while Blueprint copies are more affordable, they have limited number of times they can be used. I'm going to start with the Heavy Missile Launcher because I already have the BPO and I know it sells as I have sold 4 of them recently. I'm also going to start looking on Escrow for BPCs that I can afford to get the money flowing in and out.

For initial investment, I'm also going to look into selling shares, either "virtual" ones to friends in IPRC or real ones once I start the KODA Corp.

Its all very exciting!

Plans, Plans, Plans, Foolishness!

The biggest threat to my continued healthy existance in EvE is my impatientence.

Yesterday I talked about how I had purchased a Badger industrial ship and planned to fly it to the hunting grounds with extra care. Well this morning I set out. First I scouted a couple system in a shuttle to make sure there was no gate camps, but instead of doing that again at the most dangerous jump I had to make into 0.0 space, what did I do? I said, bah, I'll run the risk and sure enough jumped into a gate camp with my Badger! Frig!

Fortunately for me, it was only one stinking gate camping psycho (not a pirate, pirates are cool. Gate campers are usually assholes) and I was able to warp off before he killed me. Thank god for warp stablizers (I've got three installed). My shields and a quarter of my armour was blown off in one salvo, another second and I would have been scrap metal.

I smartened up after that near disaster and scouted ahead in my shuttle at the next two likely points of gate camping even though it slowed my progress down. There was none and I slinked (slunk? slunked?) into base with a scratched paint job and humbled pride. Now I have to rat hard for a couple days to build up my bank account into something respectable.

Last night I took my alt industrial character out of here home base and made the run down to Placid. It was 21 jumps through high sec space so I was able to use the autopilot with reasonable confidence. No problems. I then scooted her quickly over to Pelille and set her up nicely in my HQ where she will continue training until I get the minerals for the Caracal build ready.

Al commented in my last post whether running two characters concurrently for a month for $40 would be worth it since I could simply train the industrial skills on my main in less time and carry on. I responded there, but let me expand on my answer here.

My original plan for creating a manufacturer as an alt also had two other implied benefits. One, it would give me another character to be in Pelille while I am off in 9GYL so I can check markets, manufacture in two places, move stuff around, etc. And two, if my main's corp gets war declared, I have an account for spying runs that would not appear as red flashing automatically to enemies.

Now, is the extra $20 for another month of training time before transferring worth it? Well, this gives all the advantages of the original plan plus I can now train up Corporation management skills, refining and mining skills, some learning skills, piloting skills, and enhanced manufacturing skills. In other words, I'll be training a bunch of skills I don't want to right now on my main. That means I can move forward with plans for Kodachi Enterprises while still concentrating on getting the skills for Interdictors which if I stay on track still wouldn't be available until end of January 2007.

So the question boils down to this for me: is the ability to get Corporation management, manufacturing, mining skills trained up to useful levels now as opposed to waiting until middle of 2007 worth $40? For an impatient guy like me, the answer is "hell yeah!".

Drat! Foiled Again

I decided to investigate what was involved in transferring a character from one account to another and found that a character has to be at least 14 days old and must be from an active and paid up account. Drat! That precludes the using of the trial account only.

My only option left is to pay the $19.95 to turn the free account into a real one. That would give me another 30 days to train but double the cost of the operation from $20 for the transfer to $40 for both the second account for 30 days and the transfer. Hmmmm. Might be worth it, but I better come up with a long term training plan in that case!

Broke Again

Sigh. All the money I made up in 9GYL last week is pretty much gone between skill books, funding the new character, and buying some ships including a new Destroyer and a Badger industrial ship. That's right, an industrial ship.

It only takes one skill to fly the Badger and it has almost ten times the cargo space of the Destroyer. You know what I'm thinking. I'm going to try and run all those minerals I have stashed in 9GYL down to Pelille to help produce that Caracal. Risky? A little. I plan to run at down times and take extra care. But if you live too afraid to try then you shouldn't be playing this game. Besides, worst case scenerio I'm out about 2 million in ship and minerals and new clone. Meh. If it works, I'll be that much closer to getting my Caracal and have an industrial for minor hauling.

In warhammer related news, 8 days until the Eldar codex and army boxed set! And I have a game of Epic next week against Chris, 4000 pts.

Fear the Industrialist

I want to partake in the manufacturing/trading side of EvE, but I'm hesitant to train the skills required to make a decent go of it with my main character because he should be training up for combat operations. Need that Flycatcher Interdictor don'tcha know!

So I decided to try signing up for a second 14 day free trial account and using it to train up an industrialist. That way I can train two characters at once for 14 days and then transfer the character over as an alt. The new character will be a decent manufacturer compared to my main and give me the ability to produce more stuff for less minerals. In the case of a Caracal, that could be saving me 1 million ISK.

In other news, last night I broke 1 million Skill Points and I now have two skills at maximum level 5. Only one month and a week in to get to this level. This puts me in the Novice level as opposed to the Newb level. Next step is the Veteran level at 2 million SP. (All levels are my creations)

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Well, I've recovered from the crash that took out my destoryer. I simply said to myself, in real life and computer life accidents out of our control will happen. You get back up and move on. So I have.

I ran some more missions on Saturday, building up my standing with Republic Security Services slowly but surely, a Mimitar (Matari?) NPC coproration. I also worked on my budding manufacturing empire by building four heavy missile launchers with melted down loot and selling them on the open market. As a proof of concept, it has worked as I wanted so now I'm looking into bigger efforts. I got a BPC of one run for a Caracal cruiser and I'm going to do analysis on the cost of building it as an experiement to see whether it would be a worthwhile investment to get a BPO of a medium to high demand cruiser to manufacture and sell.

On Sunday I realized that Tuesday morning I would have Instant Recall level 5 trained up and I needed 4.5 million to buy the Eidetic Memory skillbook. With only 3.5 mil in the bank I took an early morning commute to the hunting grounds and spent the day there killing rats left right and centre, including my first solo battleship. Woot! By the end of the day I had made about 5 million and scouted back to Pelille to buy that skillbook and get ready for the rest of the week.

 

Crash! Oh No!

Back in the Eve universe... where was I? Ah yes, last you readers heard I had completed a spending spree for mods for my ratting cruiser. Well, Thursday morning I got up early and took a look at the route from HQ to the hunting grounds and saw no pod kills in the past hour. Since shutdown was in 50 minutes and most people were offline, I decided to make a run for it. All the mods were already packed in my destroyer and I undocked with hope and fear in my heart.

The journey was relatively peaceful as hoped with only one guy trying to pick me off halfway in a Merlin frigate. But I had my warp stab and bookmarks and easily outdistanced him after a couple jumps. I made it safely to my cruiser's station and refitted the Arcane Vendetta with named mods. She flies nice now, easily taking out cruisers that gave her a spot of trouble before. Even took down my very first Battleship all alone! Pleased as punch I was.

'Was' being the operative word. After the shutdown I loaded up my destroyer with minerals to take back to my little yet growing manufacturing empire in Pelille. I was heading back along the pipeline with relative ease, no camps bothering me. Still early in the day I guess. But as I was warping to the most dangerous gate, the one that seperated no security space from low security space (and hence a prime gate camping site), my computer crashed. I mean, right down and hard reboot. No warning, no client freeze, just black screen and reboot. What the hell!?!?!

It takes me about 5 minutes to log back in and I find myself, sitting in my brand new clone with kill mails in the inbox. My destroyer destroyed, my pod podded, my minerals gone. Man, was I pissed.

Later, I had cooled down and tallied up my losses. A clone worth about 80K, a ship worth 1 million, and minerals that I got from melting down useless mods from rat droppings. Considering that insurance on the destroyer pays out about 550K, I'm only down about half a million. Considering it could have happened on the way to 9GYL with 10 million ISK worth of named cruiser mods, I feel great relief. It bothers me though that my computer turned on me. Now I'll be nervous everytime I go somewhere with anything. My computer is a few years old, starting to get long in the tooth I fear. Time to start working on Kim to get a new one this Christmas maybe?

Sigh. In the meantime, I think a vacuum out of the fans and a defrag may be in order. Try to get another few months of prime playing in before she goes south. And no more runs through dangerous systems with lots of expensive cargo and no escort.

Black Storm Fleet Outmuscles Space Marines

Straight up cruiser clash. 1500 points.

Black Storm fleet
Hades HC with Chaos Lord
Archeron HC
2 x Devestation CC, one with chaos lord
Carnage CC
2 x Slaughter CC
4 x Iconoclasts

Fury Space Marines
Battlebarge
3 x Cruisers
6 x Escorts that fired boarding torps
6 x Escorts with lances and weapons batteries

 

Pictures here.

As you can see, despite the Battlebarge the chaos side had a considerable tonnage advantage, so the question became would the superior armour of the space marine ships see them through the initial exchanges.

We deployed with my fleet opting to cross the 'T' of the advancing marines immediately, tacking to the west. The space marines lined up in the middle and prepared to drive right through the firing line.

First blood may have gone to the Imperials as they took a point off of the Slaughter class Cosmic Fire, but return fire from my fleet decimated the first squadron of escorts in return. The rest of his fleet got in range and pounded Cosmic Fire down to scrap metal, setting fires off through its hull. Eventually those fires would kill it and cause a plasma drive overload that damaged several ships nearby, both chaos and Imperial.

The chaos fleet responded by crippling a crusier. The battlebarge was in close and pounded first one devestation cruiser, then the other. They chose to disengage rather than risk destruction and the space marine cruiser did the same.

Meanwhile the heavy cruisers and Carange fired at the other two cruisers while the space marines crippled the other slaughter class ship. The remaining escorts on both sides traded broadsides. Eventually the two marine cruisers were both crippled and forced to disengage rather than risk loss. The battlebarge had broken through the line but was now out of range and position with only 5 escorts remaining as backup. The Chapter Master knew an untenable situation and ordered all ships to disengage and meet at the rendezvous coordinates.

Black Storm win the field!

Awesome game Chris, and we even finished in two hours. I have hope for the tournament yet.

Harrowing Journey to 9GYL

I got up early today to see if I could make the run to the hunting grounds where my Caracal awaited without getting ganked at a gate camp. I checked the map and saw my route had no pod kills in the last hour. Good sign. I fastened the seatbelt of my Destroyer Insisto Oblivium and hit the trail.

Most of the journey was through empty systems, but halfway I approached a gate where someone else was sitting approaching as well. He was in a frigate so I wasn't too nervous yet... fellow traveller perhaps? Then I thought, what if its a T2 frigate? Nervous, I hit the jump button and warped to the next system.

As I materialized, I ordered my ship to go to the next gate and the bugger shot me! And started targeting me! He must of had FoF missiles cause I swear he hit me (and good!) before the lock was complete. Anyway, I was freaking out, terrified he would scramble me and take me and my 10 million ISK worth of cargo down. Luckily, I warped out. He must have had no scrams or was too far away to get more than one on me because I had a stab in my single low spot.

He followed me of course, but since he was not in an interceptor I was able to use the bookmarks to jump quickly and safely away before he caught up. Soon after I made it to 9GYL and hit the base. Woot!

Happy I made the run, I quickly outfitted my Caracal with its named launchers, shield tankers, and new PDU. With the improved lower CPU and Grid usage, I was able to sneak a new shield recharger in as well. Bonus!

Newly outfitted, I head out to the belts to try it out. Found one cruiser and a frigate ripe for the plucking and found that my days of having difficulties with cruisers was long over. The faster firing rate pounded him to dust easily, his armour tank no match for my fury of heavy missiles. Fear me rats! Muhahahah!

In Other News

Showing that I've still got pewter for bones, plastic for skin, and paint for blood, I've got a game of BFG tonight against LuthorVonVorn or something like that. A bit bigger than last time at 1500 points, a quick rundown of what I'm fielding:

1 Hades HC
1 Archeron HC
2 Devestations
2 Slaughters
1 Carnage
4 Incoclasts

Still no big ships, but I want to see what he is fielding and how he commands before I commit Grand Cruisers or a battleship. Better to have speed, flexibility, and numbers first.

Spending Spree

What to do with 15 million ISK? Expensive skillbooks? Nah, don't need those for another week or two. Jump clone service? Tempting, but reality is I don't need one yet. I know! Time to reinvest in my money making machine, the Caracal Cruiser Arcane Vendetta II. (May the original Arcane Vedetta rest in peace.)

My cruiser up in the ratting grounds has all basic mods after the debacle that was the destruction of Arcane Vedetta I. With basic missile launchers I am not getting the improved rate of fire and missile capacity I could get. So safely secured in my secret base in Pelille (muhahahah, can't find me now corpies!) I started shopping. I bought 1 Arbalest Heavy Missile Launcher (best outside of Tech II), 2 Limos Heavy Missile Launchers, 2 Limos Assault Missule Launchers, Named Sheild Booster, Recharger, and large and medium Sheild Extenders. As well as a named Power Diagnostic unit. Couldn't afford the better quality afterburner for cruisers nor the improved Ballistic Control unit. Oh well.

All this stuff was located within three jumps of Pelille (not buying in Syndicate after what happened to my first destroyer... lesson learned) so I waited until this morning, got up 25 minutes early, and did a run in my destroyer to pick it all up and scoot back to Pelille. Now I've got about 10 million ISK worth of mods in my cargohold and a trip to 9GYL to make. Scary.

Also during my shopping spree I picked up two more BPOs: heavy missile launcher and Antimatter Small charges. And I bought two new skillbooks, Light Scout Drone Operation and Combat Drone operation. I was able to pick up the heavy missile BPO this morning, but the other BPO and skillbooks were in another system and not required for the trip to 9GYL. Get them later.

One last thing: Got my first fifth level skill last night, Learning trained to level 5. Woot! Next up, Instant recall. (For the Learning Skill Path Professionals, yes I realize I trained Learning V too soon in the perfect path. It was a mistake and I did not realize it until too late. Oh well, close enough)

Exciting times!

Wow, what a weekend!

I got a lot of good playing time in on the weekend, so here's the rundown.

I failed to get the destroyer out of the deep Syndicate region. Hell, I didn't even get past the first gate. Couple of pirates were waiting outside the station (not for me, but I don't know what for... station camping I guess?) and pasted me pretty hard. I warped to the gate but without instas that 15 kilometers might as well have been 150 klicks. Dead and podded. Lesson learned.

Back in Pelille (yay clones) I became even more determined to get a destroyer. I searched the region and found one nearby in High Sec space that was 300K more expensive but I figured I'd actually get to warp somewhere with it and remain alive. Its a fun little ship, but not good for ratting or mission running. Too big a target and not enough firepower to compensate except against the smallest NPCs. However, its good for running mods and supplies from system to system (when instas are involved) because its almost as fast as a Merlin but has the cargo space of a Caracal. Sweet!

My funds were now down to below 5 million so I spent some serious time ratting up in 9GYL with the IPRC boys. By last night I had a cool 15 million in the back account and no lost ships. I've also been running level 1 missions out of Pelille in order to get a high standing with someone and eventually get to level 2 and 3 missions.

On the corporation management side of things, I've started manufacturing by buying a blueprint original (BPO) for Phalanx rockets and produces 20,000 of them for my Merlin fleet. I also got some blueprint copies (BPC) from Lucius to make heavy missiles of all four types. I get the minerals from cheap loot dropped by rats that the corporation doesn't need and melting them down. So far, so good. The long term plan is to find a BPO of something people need that I can produce and sell for profit as a constant source of income. Missiles are just for expeirmenting and seeing where I need to improve skills. In other development news, I learned how to make instas and been putting that skill to good use in Pelille, rounding out routes to and from gates.

In the skill development side of things, still working on the Learning Skills. Should have one to level 5 tonight and another next week. I took a break from Learning skills on Monday and read up on Mimitar frigates and boosted my Social skill for mission running benefits. The Vigil comes highly reccommended as a good scout/tackler so I'm eager to try that out.

So that's where it is at.

Experimenting

With the war with INCA winding down if not completely over, I felt emboldened to experiment now that I had gotten my feet under me.

I bought a destroyer in the Syndicate region and didn't really think about where it was until after the sale. Whoops! Twenty two jumps away deep in unknown territory. I figure it would be an adventure to get there and back. Gotta see what its like sooner or later.

This morning I headed out in my Merlin frigate Death Threat III and started heading back to the old headquarters where I was going to switch to a shuttle. Along the way I went one jump out of my way to pick up a shield recharger I purchased and then went back on the trail. Unfortunately, the insta bookmark to the next gate was setup to come from the first gate and not the second one I was at from my sidetrip. Sure enough, I warped in 18 klicks out from the gate and a gate camper was there locking on to me. Having never been in PvP I felt foolhardy and decided to try and make a run for the gate. I'm fast, right? And small? He shouldn't be able to hit me, right?

Wrong. Only 3000 meters from the gate I was dead and soon after mercifully podded to save my clone the embarassment of warping back to base without a ship. Sigh. I upgrade my new clone, buy a shuttle, and hit the road down to where my Cormorant destroyer is waiting patiently. Once I get into systems where I no longer have instas I start to feel a lot of fear even though the shuttle I'm in is being ignored. How am I going to get back without bookmarks I asked myself? I got to the station without incident and marveled at the pretty destroyer. I threw on a warp stab and two afterburners with two shield rechargers as I consider trying to make the run for it. Long way to high sec space. Then I consider just selling it and slinking back in my shuttle.

What I end up doing will have to wait until tonight as I needed to leave. Right now I'm leaning towards making the run for it. I've got insurance and a good clone. Worst case scenario is I die and I'm out a few hundred thousand ISK and a little wiser. We'll see.

RIP Arcane Vendetta

Last night I was flying with some corp mates in my Caracal cruiser Arcane Vendetta and we engaged two Rear Admiral battleships. I arrived in the belt first so they targetted me and started whacking my sheilds. I turned on the shield booster and was holding on alright while the others attacked. Then I made a mistake.

I got distracted by discussions in the Alliance chat window and failed to realize my capacitor (cap) gave out and shield booster stopped working. I look back and my sheilds are gone and armour is going quick! For those that don't know, Caracals have got great shields (like 4000 HPs) and crappy armour (like 1000 HPs). I tried to warp out but my ass was grass before you could say "uh oh". Boom!

I limped back to my hanger in my lowly pod and later that evening set up Arcane Vendetta II, a little poorer but a little wiser. Worse part of losing my ship was the three upgraded heavy missile launchers I had that are costly to replace and none are in nearby systems. Have to settle for standard off the corp hanger shelf launchers instead. Sigh.

On the upside, money making is progressing well (made 1 mil this morning solo-ratting) and once I get to 10 million ISK I will leave the hunting grounds our corp uses and head down to the main HQ to help out however I can in the war against INCA coproration.

Big Ship = Big Attitude

I'm really enjoying my time flying the Caracal cruiser in EvE. Its firepower and shield defense works well with my style of hang back and fire from a distance. Trying to figure out the best way to equip it takes some time though. For example, is the Large Shield Extender too big for my hull making me a bigger target? Should I exchange it for a nice Shield Recharger or a smaller extender?

Right now I'm training the basic Learning skills to level 5 with an eye to getting the second level skillbooks when I have enough cash. Train them up to level three so I can start working to the next ship class. Which one though? I've narrowed it down to either small and fast assault ship (Harpy or Hawk) or the Ferox battlecruiser, and right now I'm leaning towards the powerful BC class as it has lots more firepower and would only take 3 days to train for with the right books.

Of course, even with the right skills I still have that huge problem of money. I've got 3.1 million ISK but need 22.5 million for the Learning skillbooks. Beyond that, I'll need who knows how much to buy my next ship no matter what it is. Sigh.

Ok I admit It, EvE is Sucking My Free Time At Home

My Warhammer posts are suffering for three reasons.

1) TV season is upon us and I can't watch good TV and paint as I could in the summer when it was dumb TV season.

2) My wife and I are undergoing fertility treatment process that requries a lot of running into the clinic in Ottawa that sucks up time like no one's business. Work is very busy as an offshoot because I need to make up lost time for appointments.

3) EvE. I admit it, I'm right damn hooked. So hooked that this blog is now going to see some EvE blogging along with the warhammer stuff. Its my gaming blog after all, its just been that warhammer was my main fix.

Sigh. I decided to start posting my EvE ramblings here because I noticed today that on a corp forum board I am part of I amassed 48 posts in less than a month, putting me in fourth place of the most posts. First has only 99 and he's been on since June 16th. I am sick, sick, sick.

I started EvE after many weeks of waffling and browsing the web for info on it. What finally convinced me to join was the method of increasing your "level" by learning skill points. Basically, you set a skill to train and it takes a set amount of time based on your attributes and the skill in question. This training even occurs when you are offline so I can get a more powerful character without playing constantly. The lower time commitment required to get into the game sold me and I love it.

I started on Sept 9 and followed the tutorial over a couple sessions. It took about 2 hours to complete everything the tutorial had to show but it was so worth it. By the time the tutorial was finished I was comfortable enough to set out on my own. Being a Caldari pilot my first non-newb ship was a Heron which I later realized was a mistake. The Heron is more for electronic warfare and not straight up fighting, but I didn't know that. I died after a few missions in it. I upgraded to a Merlin frigate which is much better suited to fighting and I had some success in it. After about 10 days, I was ready to join some friends like Adam out in the low security (low sec) space, home of pirates and outlaws. Woot.

Adam flew out to meet me on the edge of high sec space and I packed up my meager belonging and entered the unknown. Many jumps later, I was secure in the headquarters of the Interstellar Privateers of Res Communis, aka IPoRC. The gents there helped me outfit my Merlin for real combat and my training began.

Over the next week I developed my skills and ratted ("to rat" means to hunt NPC pirates) while building up the skills to fly a cruiser. Meanwhile our corporation (aka a clan) got involved into a war and moved our headquarters into the warzone. This past Sunday night was the last convoy that got my stuff safely installed in the new HQ in Murethand system. After that I took off to our second base in a system called 9GYL so I could build up some capital by ratting in my brand new Caracal cruiser, outfitted with Heavy Missiles and an awesome shield.

That's where I am now and its going well. This morning I was on for 30 minutes and got to kill some rats (NPC Pirates) with two allies from other corps and earned about 2 million ISK (ISK = EvE money). Nice! I was able to pay off my debt to the corp for the two Caracals they provided me with.

Now you know.